From Big Oil to Big Poo, from cold Canadian winters to humid Texas nights - a Plucky Canadian girl gets plunked into the sweltering heart of Tejas.

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Thursday, May 09, 2019

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! Also, SAHM Survival Guide eh?

Happy Almost Mother's Day!

Have you called your mother lately!? I call my mom so much she's like...sweetie I love you but maybe stop calling me more than five times a morning while I'm at work?

In any case, it’s time for an episode of…SAHM Survival Guide eh?

The anxious stay at home mom (or dad) survival guide. The
antsy stay at home mom (Or dad…you get the idea) survival guide? The full of
self-doubt stay at home mom survival guide?

What I’m aiming for this week:

1) Staying calm in the face of tantrums and chaos. Keeping
my sense of humor when Benji is screaming and tearing off his pants and
throwing them in the dog’s water bowl and now the dog is really thirsty and Ellie
is needing some quiet cuddle time on the couch and we are already ten minutes
late for school.

2) Keeping my own joy and balance in my life, and in that
vein staying healthy not just physically but emotionally, intellectually,
spiritually and socially. Let’s face it, we’re complex beings full of layers of
wants and needs and desires and they can’t all be fulfilled staying home with
the kids all day, every day. A good life needs change, and growth, and room to
expand. And a reliable babysitter! And, really, a nana and papa close by.

3) Letting go of my desire to control their relationship
with each other. I want them to build a close relationship, one that they will
both learn to treasure and count on now, tomorrow and twenty, thirty years down
the road. I’m learning to surrender my referee compulsions and let them work it
out on their own.

4) Disabusing myself of the notion that a good parent is an
anxious parent, one who has worried about and foreseen every difficulty and
planned and arranged to have them all systematically removed for them. Wow even
writing this I am realizing how much I do this and how much it needs to stop,
like, right now.

I do NOT have all the answers. I have found a few that work
for me, and I’m willing and able to write about it, and willing and able to put
myself out there and share my hopes. My desire is that this connects with other
SAHM’s out there. Or anyone, really, who struggles to care for another person
and still maintain their own identity.

Let’s leave you with some action plans, yeah?

1)Begin the morning consciously, whether that’s
reading a bible passage or praying or meditating or even just laying out the
day the way you want it to go. Then forgiving yourself when you can’t because
the baby has jumped up into bed with you at 530am wired for sound or your dog
throws up on your pillow. And then sits in it. And then licks your face until
the lovely doggy-puke-breath odor rouses you. I can’t make this stuff up
people.

2)You need a physical action plan you can do at
least three times a week. It can be an expensive gym, or your bike, or your own
two legs. It can be swimming or climbing a rock wall, it can be with the kids
or without but you need it. Your body needs it. Heck your brain needs it.
Exercising lowers your risk of cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s/Dementia and
depression. Boom, boom, boom. You don't just want to be around when your own kids have kids, you want to be healthy and active able to enjoy them. Don't forget to forgive yourself when you skip the
yoga class to work on a poem about working out instead sometimes. (Who does that!? Me. I do.)

That’s it folks, some concerns I’ve had I’m sure I’m not alone
in, and some action plans I’m putting together for myself to have my best life
possible.

Really lastly, if you’re a stay at home mom and you can’t
fit in an exercise routine easily try this neat trick that works for me. Start
doing 5 pushups a day. Then drop and do 5 pushups whenever you think of doing
pushups. Maybe not in HEB but if no one’s around and you’re not in the middle
of a parking lot…go for it. It adds strength amazingly quickly and the fast
progress you make encourages you to go for ten, then fifteen pushups a day.
Just in time for sleeveless shirt weather. You’re welcome. Now go forth and drop
and give me five people, your shoulders, and your future grandkids, will thank me.